The Repentant Seraph: Kratos Aurion
by Darthlink79
Summary: Kratos reflects on his life...
1. Chapter 1

I'm....the oldest living being, human being…in the world…in all history. I've seen things most humans and even most elves would not believe. And it is here....on my 4030th birthday, that I reflect back on my life. My....long life.

I was born in the old Tethe'allan kingdom, into a house of low Nobility. I....was a knight in the Tethe'allan kingdom in the service of the Queen Solielle. I was one of the knights of highest esteem and was perhaps the most likely candidate for the Queen's hand in marriage. Until I was known to have been seen working with half-elves. I had been trying to get an audience with the king for this one half-elf and his sister. They fled Heimdall during the half-elven purge of the elves, and headed to Slyvarant because they had heard good things about the treatment of half-elves there. However, they were chased out of Slyvarant…it turns out slaves who were half-elves were treated well. Before they did they had gotten word of an invasion into Tethe'alla and they needed to get the information to the king of Tethealla. I overheard their pleas and....tried to help, only to have my honor stripped from me. Later the city was destroyed, and Mithos regretted it, and refused to fall into despair. His strength gave me hope. Without him I would have no life to live. And I was _afraid to die._

We decided I needed to recover completely both physically and mentally, and we traveled to the city that is now known as Asgard, the old capital of the Sylvarant Dynasty. The _Original _Sylvarant Dynasty. There, we took refuge in a house in the slums, where we were met by another Half-elf. This Half-elf would quickly become infatuated with Martel, and the two fell in love. Yuan Ka-Fai. My best friend. Not a friend of Mithos. Mithos never considered Yuan a friend, merely a rival for Martel's affection. Martel was everything to Mithos...perhaps I should have foreseen all the horrible events that were to come.

The Four of us traveled together, using the latest in Tethe'allan Soldier Technology, Cruxis Crystals, immortalized for all eternity as Angels. I was granted with the only existing Cruxis Crystals, being the Queen's Knight. We traveled to the Altars of Mana, the resting places of the beings the elves called..."Centurions". Places of unusual mana concentration....the dias of Ancient Asgard, the crypts of ancient Triet, the altar to the dark gods, the tower of lightning, the caves of Tethe'alla, and the Geyser of Thoda. In addition to the final spirits, we had to hunt down Aska and Luna, and force them into a pact to respond to Martel's Panpipes....Maxwell to give the half-elves respite, and Origin.

Origin. One of the defining moments of my life....the place where I would be forced to conform to Mithos' will...or die. _I was always afraid to die._ That is why...I took this pact. It guaranteed my protection, by the strongest of all beings....Origin. Mithos formed the pact, the pact sealed on my mana, the mark of its existence was my life. If I lived, then the pact exists. If I don't it doesn't. The pact was sealed..."On the Mana of my Body"

It was here Mithos was granted the Eternal Sword....the Omnipotent Blade. The Blade that could control Space and Time and turn its user into a god-like being, omnipotent, or...almost omnipotent. It couldn't undo the past, and it couldn't revive the dead. Origin could not interfere with it either, as long as I lived. Finally, our self appointed task of ending the Kharlan War and saving the Giant Kharlan Tree was close at hand. We were now...Cruxis. The Four Seraphim of Cruxis. Mithos and Martel Yggdrasill. Yuan. And myself...Kratos Aurion.

This is just the beginning of my tale. The...backdrop for the next 4000 years of my life I suppose you might say.

The next significant event...was upon reaching the Giant Kharlan Tree on the Holy Ground of Kharlan, Martel was killed by a member of the Army. We had trusted him and allowed him to travel with us. It was a mistake. Yuan was...devastated. Mithos more so, Martel was his world, without his foundation his sanity crumbled and he.....used the Eternal Sword to tear the human to pieces, and to try to bring her back. Martel was absorbed into the dying tree and became one with the Great Seed. Mithos in a fit of Rage, called forth Derris-Kharlan, and split the world into two halves, Tethe'alla and Slyvarant. Mithos....became Lord Yggdrasill, of Cruxis

My…Master.


	2. Chapter 2

I am an Angel of Cruxis....and always will be.

Could this be the curse perhaps....the punishment…to live forever, following the Orders of a madman out of fear...instead of out of loyalty? There was _nothing_ I could do...then or now. I was trapped in a fatal circle, just as the worlds Mithos made were. To prevent war and to preserve the human race, the "World Prolongation Project" was devised. We established a Church to the "Goddess Martel" to manipulate the people of the world. We created armies of half-elves, the Desians, to terrorize the declining world, and give them a reason to want to regenerate the world. The Desians had a twofold purpose, the one above, and they also created exspheres....horrible parasitic creatures that create lifeless beings.

The Worlds of Slyvarant and Tethe'alla were split into two balanced above each other like an hourglass, the Mana flowing to the one with the awakened Summon Spirits, from the world where they sleep. They would be awakened by having the Chosen of Regeneration, one born from selectively bred humans, closest to Martel's mana signature, travel the land to the places where the Spirits were..."resting"...and eventually come to us in Derris-Kharlan to be used as a vessel for Martel's soul.

Martel was absorbed into the Great Seed upon her death. And the Chosen's were drained of their minds and perhaps their souls through Cruxis Crystal Parasitization, so that they could have Martel placed inside of them. Most of the time however, they were rejected by Martel's soul.

However whenever a Chosen completed the regeneration the flow of mana would change and the declining world would be free of the Desians and begin to flourish again. Though I did not know what the exspheres were for. When I found out that Mithos in a twisted perversion of Martel's last wish to "Create a World Free of Discrimination", was intending to turn all beings into lifeless beings, to rid them of the "Flithy Blood that flows through their veins" and thereby end discrimination I was horrified. I fled from Mithos that day, and headed down to one of the Human Ranches, to deal with the exspheres at their source. Kvar the Desian in charge of this ranch however....one of the Desian Grand Cardinals, was working on a way to create an 'angel making' exsphere, to grow a Cruxis Crystal inside a human host. The "Angelus Project" was to be his offering to Lord Yggdrasill that would make him one of the Seraphim.

However the Host of the Angelus Project, was...not something I could ignore. Her designation was A012...human name..."Anna"....and I fell in love with her. I couldn't let her endure torture at the hands of Desians any longer, so I ran with her, took her and fled. Ran away, Kvar was furious and Mithos now knew I had betrayed him. We had no choice but to run. Run as fast and as far as possible.

After sometime, we found ourselves in Asgard. Anna was giving birth to a child....a young boy, by the name of Lloyd. We continued to run with Lloyd for...three years, until we found ourselves trapped by Kvar and his Desians outside of another Ranch, Forcystus' Ranch. Kvar stole the "Angelus Project" off of Anna's body, and her mana went out of control, she became a monster.

She lost her mind, and began to attack Lloyd, if it were not for Noishe's intervention Lloyd would be dead. Noishe my protozoan companion for 4000 years was wounded seriously in that attack. Anna regained herself and begged me to kill her. I couldn't bring myself to do it. The woman that I loved, I could not end her life…I am weak, I could not save her. I stood and struggled with it for a while until she lost her sanity again and began to attack Lloyd. I intervened and killed her to save him, but as she tumbled down the cliff her monstrous arm dragged Lloyd down with her. Enraged I turned to Kvar and his Desians, my eyes burning with a fire so intense Efreet himself would flee. I killed _every Desian on that hill...leaving none alive and showing no mercy._ Kvar dropped the Angelus Project in fear and it rolled down near Anna and Lloyd before I was finished with them all....and when I was done I descended the cliff. Only to find two bodies. Half eaten by monsters.

In Despair I wandered around, and went back to Cruxis many years later, believing I could no longer do anything else....cursed to bear my, embracing the eternal grief.

There comes a point in every being's life, where they must choose one of two paths. If you fail to choose you will break apart into two beings, and neither of those beings can truly live until the other dies. My choices for many thousands of years were two. Kill the Lord of Cruxis, Lord Yggdrasill, or help Mithos with his Age of Lifeless Beings. I was abhorrently opposed to his Age of Lifeless Beings, but I could not choose. Martel, had entrusted me with her younger brother, and for many years I used that as a justification for my inaction. But the Mithos I served was not the Mithos I was entrusted with, but I was still too cowardly to act.

Originally my Hope for the future was Mithos...and he betrayed me....and I fell into despair. I despaired that I had no way to stop Mithos, who rampaged upon losing Martel, and that I somewhere in me approved of his reasoning. I then found Anna....and she became my New Hope. She made me realize I was averting my eyes to reality...she convinced me I needed to right Mithos' mistakes. But I failed to protect her and again fell into despair....

And then 17 years later I found my Son at Anna's grave. I found out the truth that my **boy was alive! **I thought perhaps he'd be my new hope again! However after seeing the way he fawned after the Chosen, I realized Lloyd's attitude was no different than my own.....he too clung to a hope outside of himself.

Both Hope and Despair exist in the individual, and...after 4000 years I had failed to see that. By doing that...I could seal myself away from reality...ignore it. Justify my own inaction. I used others as my support; it is naive to think that you can push all of the responsibility onto the shoulders of another. I am as responsible for Mithos' actions...as much as Mithos was. The truth of the matter was...I should not have been concerned with righting Mithos' mistakes, but rather _my own_. I thought at this time, I should start over one more time, thought...but never decided.

I had come to the world of Sylvarant as the Guardian of the Chosen. This Chosen, Collete lived near Forcystus' Ranch in the Village of Iselia. It was there that I first met him, the boy that is my son. Lloyd. He was raised by a dwarf, and turned out better than I could have raised him. I agreed to escort the Chosen on her Journey of Regeneration, knowing full well, the despair my son was going to have to feel. I led the Chosen and her group around the world to each of the seals. The Seal of Fire, of Wind, of Water, of Light. Awakening the Chosen the whole time. I was well aware of what was to ultimately happen to the Chosen, and kept her at an arm's length, as well as my son, though I taught him to be stronger, in combat and determination at the very least.

During this journey, he uncovered the truth. That Cruxis was an evil organization that the Desians made exspheres out of human lives, that his father killed his mother....and that there was a whole world that would die if Sylvarant was regenerated. Lloyd reminded me of Mithos, unwilling to sacrifice lives, always looking for another way....at least the old Mithos. Still, I could not choose between Mithos and Lloyd, so I betrayed Lloyd, at the Tower of Salvation. It was there he found out who I was, one of the Four Seraphim of Cruxis, one of his arch enemies of all time. The same man who was going to kill Colette for Martel's sake. I intentionally let Lloyd go free there, Yuan jumping into the fray in time to save Colette. Lord Yggdrasill was forced to come down from Derris-Kharlan due to the chaos and call me back to Derris-Kharlan. He showed Lloyd his place with the Omnipotence of the Eternal Sword.

From Derris-Kharlan I secretly aided Lloyd, and dropped hints to help him along his quest. Still…I was unable to decide between Mithos and Lloyd…until Yuan coerced me into meeting him, in front of Altessa's house. That was where Lloyd found out who I was…that I, one of his enemies…was his father. Mithos nearly killed Yuan there and I was taken prisoner by Cruxis, by my own "hope". If it were not for Kate of the Sybak Academy, I would still be a captive of Cruxis and Mithos would still be Lord of Cruxis. She deserves commendation. Regardless, I still could not make my decision there in the cells of Cruxis. I instructed The Chosen, Zelos, to obtain Aionis from the vaults of Cruxis. And then Lloyd defeated Mithos and saved Colette. I could neither fall with Mithos, nor save him, without choosing either… I left Lloyd to do my dirty work.

Mithos defeat, allowed me to pick...no...**forced** me onto a single path. The path of the future. I must bid farewell to the past, if I am to move forward or disappear. Mithos was perhaps the greatest mass murderer in all of human history, and by believing in his ideas, even if that part is deep down now; I bear the sin of those lives. I could not simply go join Lloyd because Mithos was dead, that is selfish. Had I made the choice to end him myself....picked on my own, the _maybe _I could forgive myself. But until Lloyd made my paths one...I watched passively....so Lloyd must then defeat me.

Origin was bound to the seal of my own bodily mana. One cannot live, even for an instant without their bodily mana. For me to be alive, meant that Lloyd could not succeed. Lloyd became the Symbol of the Future. I became the Symbol of the Past. I was a man who had long outlived his time...lived far too long. And Lloyd was my future and the world's future. But....the past must be conquered. I too was responsible for Mithos' actions and as such was bound to his fate. I too should die after defeat from Lloyd. "Old Soldiers have only to pass away....."


End file.
